This invention relates to a twin outboard drive for watercraft and more particularly to an improved transmission and shifting arrangement for such drives.
In many marine drives, particularly those associated with larger watercraft, there are employed a pair of outboard drives for powering the watercraft. These outboard drives, be they outboard motors or the outboard drive of an inboard/outboard arrangement normally employ a relatively conventional forward, neutral, reverse transmission made up of a driving bevel gear that drives a pair of oppositely rotating bevel gears that are rotatably supported on the propeller shaft. A dog clutching arrangement is associated with the transmission for selectively coupling one of the oppositely rotating bevel gears to the propeller shaft for controlling its direction of rotation. When twin outboard drives are employed, it is the normal practice to provide a separate control for each outboard drive and particularly for the transmission of the individual outboard drives.
When twin drives are employed, it is the normal practice to have the propeller shafts rotate in opposite directions when both outboard drives are operating in either the forward or reverse mode so as to improve directional stability. When this is done and when a conventional arrangement is employed wherein the input shafts rotate in the same direction, the dog clutches of the transmissions must be shifted in opposite directions to select the same transmission ratios (either forward or reverse). If conventional controls for the transmission are emloyed, this means that the operator must shift one transmission control one direction and the other transmission control in the opposite direction when he desires to operate both drives in the same direction. This obviously is confusing and can cause numerous problems.
It is, therefore, a principal object of this invention to provide an improved transmission control for outboard drives.
It is another object of this invention to provide an improved transmission control for twin outboard drives wherein the controls are movable in the same direction so as to shift the respective outboard drives into the same driving gear.